DS Opportunity
by Thor2000
Summary: When Roger finds a deed to oil fields in his late father's belongings, he tries to profit from them, but getting them means colliding with J.R. Ewing!


Roger Collins entered Collinwood, the home of his ancestors, and then moved out of the way of his five-year-old grandnephew racing by chased by his mother. His first instinct was to put on his dour face and disapprove, but something else forced him to grin and enjoy the spectacle.

"Sorry, Uncle Roger," Carolyn balanced the boy on her hip. "But it's wet out and J.R's really bored of being cooped up."

"I thought your mother was going to see aside a room for all the kids to play in." Roger reminded her.

"She is." Carolyn pulled her long hair over her other shoulder to keep her first-born from pulling on it. "She's cleaning out the records room."

Roger raised an eyebrow and turned left for the study. Passing it by, he headed down the hallway beyond in the downstairs of the East Wing and down the stairs where the bottom was littered with boxes full of old records and deeds and forgotten papers. His sister was guiding the clean up job as the room was cleared out of trash. Maggie supervised sweeping and cleaning the walls with two housekeepers in attendance.

"Quentin," Liz turned to the scoundrel. "Take those old albums to the upstairs library in the West Wing. Everything else gets tossed."

"Tossed?" Roger objected. "But these were father's and grandfather's old important papers. Both grandfather Jamison and our father used this room as their office. There are receipts to everything we have ever owned."

"And they are all out of date." Liz held the face of the true authority of Collinwood. "Honestly, Roger, we have all these rooms collecting dust and the grandchildren need a room to play. We need to stop holding on to things. Time changes."

"But Liz," Roger looked forlornly to her. "When I was a boy, I used to come down here to be with grandfather..."

"And the new grandchildren deserve to have the room too." Liz turned as Maggie heaved up another box.

"Mrs. Stoddard?" Maggie asked as Liz briefly studied the old ledgers with the name of Edward Collins's name and handwriting.

"Pitch it." That was Liz's straight curt response.

"Now see here," Roger was almost Shakespearean as he took the box from the former governess. "Some of father's stuff is in here. Look here, Jamison Edward Collins, it's our father's journal."

"Roger," Liz looked back to her brother. "You are welcome to anything."

"Oh my," Dr. Julia Hoffman appeared in the door as an impressed observer. "I haven't been down here since one of the ghosts of Collinwood locked me inside."

"Really," Quentin had already arrived behind her. "And who would that be? Gerard?" He noticed Julia staring back at him as if he should know. "Oh…" He realized. "That one."

"Quentin," Maggie grinned to her husband. "You weren't here when the ghost of your ancestor terrorized the house. He actually forced us all down to the Old House temporarily." She paused a second to look at old pictures of forgotten Collinses from the 1840s and 1850s. "I don't recall any ghosts here named Gerard. Was that before I arrived?"

"Oh," Julia looked up distractedly from admiring photos from 1897. "It was during a trip you and Quentin took to visit your relatives in Delaware." She lied and realized that Maggie wouldn't have memories of those hauntings. They had occurred in another timeline in another future after her trip into that other reality. Both herself, Barnabas and even the late Professor T. Eliot Stokes had altered that timeline. Without Gerard's influence, Quentin never encountered Daphne's ghost, Carolyn never metor encountered Sebastian Shaw and Maggie was never committed to Windcliff for harassment from Gerard.

"Liz!" Roger was sitting at the old desk and emptying a box. "Look what I found in father's journal. It's an old deed to several parcels of land near some place called Sibly, Arkansas. I didn't know we had land that far away. I wonder why father never cashed in on it."

"Interesting." Liz looked over his shoulder. "Pitch it."

"Liz," Roger was incredulous to her apathy to their past. "This could be expensive property. We could have money waiting for us..."

"We need more money like Carolyn needs more hair." Liz looked back at her brother and still saw a bit of the eight-year brat she used to baby-sit for spending money. "Roger, just throw it away."

"I will not!" Roger pouted a bit, dumped the old ledgers together and headed upstairs to the first floor study as Maggie, Quentin and Julia smiled into the direction of his presence.

PART 2

Roger Collins enjoyed his work while he could while knowing that retirement for him was probably around the corner. Not so eager to let Willie Loomis replace him, he wasn't worried about being out of breath as he came up the three stories to his office or having cars sent to pick him up for meetings. The business was still very much his life from the sales meetings to the efficiency reports of the company. He peered from the blue carpet of his office to the ship decor around as his chair swerved out to the view of the docks outside and then the cloudy mist overhanging the distant North Atlantic. To this day, he still insisted that if the Collins Shipyards had built the Titanic that the iceberg would have moved out of its way.

"Roger, you have a moment?" Willie stuck his head in the door.

"A brief one." Roger thought of Loomis as just another junior executive after his job. The former Collins caretaker wandered in wearing a white shirt, blue tie and black slacks as he thumbed a file under his arm. Roger just looked up to him with a wry look and realized Carolyn had tamed the former ruffian into a husband and father.

"That Sibly property you wanted me to check on..." Loomis sat down. "I called the Department of Records in Arkansas to see if the deed was good and..."

"Yes?"

"It's good." Willie admitted as Roger beamed ear to ear. "He told me they've been trying to track down the owners for years. It seems there's oil on the property and several business men have been trying to buy it for years, but no one knew where the deed was!"

"Oil!" Roger stood ecstatically. "The Collins stocks will go sky high with this sort of money behind them, and imagine it, Liz wanted me to throw that deed away. Loomis, this could make us billionaires!"

"I know." Willie tried to hold back his excitement. "What do you want me to tell Mr. Barnes?"

"Who?" Roger glanced back in his glee.

"Cliff Barnes." Willie continued as he stood. "He owns some drilling company in Texas. He called me too asking how much we'd want to sell the property for."

"Tell him to forget it." Roger's eyes shone and his eyes were full with life realizing that Collins Enterprises was now in the oil business. "We are not selling at any price. Get Fenton Hardy at the bank. Tell him we'll need a loan for drilling equipment."

"Okay," Willie started to turn then looked back at his uncle-in-law. "Are we jumping the gun a bit?"

"Nonsense," Roger tossed off the notion. "You're the one who said we owned an oil field. Now get going, the sooner we start drilling, the sooner we can start reveling in the acclaims." He turned to the window as Willie headed out. Roger gasped for breath once more as his hand came slowly down on a three foot long model of the Titanic that Quentin had bought him on his last birthday.

"We could be building another one of you yet!" He told it.

PART 3

"Liz," Roger felt both frustrated and annoyed. "You killed the deal? Why in the name of God would you do that?"

"Roger," Liz looked back at him as she moved from the drawing room desk to the dining room. "Why do you want to go into the oil business?"

"Because it's a fine time." Roger looked back at her while she puttered away her old age watering the plants that adorned the dining room. "You know that gas crisis we had with Carter in the White House, and now with Reagan and his economics, we stand to make a lot of money. You sound just like father when Uncle Benjamin opened the cannery and we made more money from it during the war and you know it."

"My lord," Liz studied her hibiscus. "How will we every survive the Eighties?"

"Liz, please." Roger followed her to the kitchen where Barnabas and Quentin were standing over the coffee pot discussing something no one but them understood. "If father knew there was oil on the property, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Please, talk to Fenton and tell him to approve the loan."

"Roger..." Liz started to turn to him then turned to the cousins whose advice she trusted. "Barnabas, Quentin, we have a chance to go into the oil business. I'd could really appreciate another voice right now."

"Well, Liz..." Barnabas started.

"Careful, Liz." Quentin interceded with a wry look. "He's about to recommend going back to the horseless carriage."

"...The way I see it." Barnabas continued unfazed. "We really do not need it. We are not hurting for money; we could make just as much money building on it as we could poking holes in it, but for what? To dump more automobile fumes into the air. Do we really need that? I say sell it."

"And so speaks the Great Collins Empire." Quentin beamed rascally as his finished his coffee. "Sorry, Roger, but I sort of feel the same, but for different reasons. What does a New England family need with oil stock? It'd be just one more thing to fight over."

"Well, Roger," Liz turned to her brother. "Three to one. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me to get the loan myself." Roger looked back aggravatedly. "I'll open my own company and put mother's maiden name on it. Edmonds Oil. Finally something in town without the Collins name on it."

"Mr. Collins." Mrs. Johnson appeared in the slinging oak doors to the dining room. "There's someone to see you. A Mr. Cliff Barnes?"

"Really," Roger looked back pompously. "Maybe I can make him an investor." Roger pumped up his chest and strided out as proud as a peacock through the back hall from the dining room and into the drawing room. His back to Roger, Barnes was staring up to the picture of Isaac Collins over the mantel as he turned and met Roger. He grinned confidently himself as he took Roger's hand and shook it.

"Mr. Collins," The Texan native started amongst these New England furnishings. "Cliff Barnes, owner of Wentworth Tool and Dye, my mother's company. I'm also a former lawyer so I know how important it is to work face to face. I understand you all own the Sibly property in Arkansas. You know, I've been trying to get that land since I heard you had it."

"Mr. Barnes." Roger tilted his head to one side as he tried to accept Barnes's Texan accent. "I'm afraid I am still no longer willing to sell, however..."

"Roger," Liz scowled as she saw how her brother was corrupted. "If you spend one cent of Collins money on this endeavor..."

"If you are interested," Roger continued. "I might be willing to enter a partnership with you."

"Well, that might be..."

"Roger," Barnabas stepped forward. "You seem to have forgotten one tiny little detail. Collins Enterprises owns that deed, and you can't do anything with it without Liz." Liz looked at him a moment and looked back grinning. Roger dropped his jaw as Barnes watched in shock. He seemed to be well versed in family feuds as he saw the hornet's nest he had stirred up.

"Well," Quentin's eyes rounded at the turn of events. "This just got interesting."

"No one in the family knew that deed existed." Roger sounded so confidant. "You yourself already told me to throw it away so it no longer belongs to anyone. I say we take the dispute to Judge Crathorne and let him decide who owns the land."

Liz glanced to Quentin and then to Barnabas. Cliff Barnes found himself mired in a sort of family confrontation that reminded him of other feuding families. Roger offered him a drink of sherry and the two of them began negotiating. Barnabas looked to Quentin for answers as Liz just sighed under breath and retreated the back way for the dining room once more.

PART 4

The weeds and brush around the Sibly property shook and flailed in the tremendous breezes generated by the landing helicopter. It was Roger's furthest trip from home outside his capacity as an employee for Collins Enterprises. He and Barnes set foot on the dry Arkansas land as they set foot on earth again. Their pilot watched them trace among the weeds and crabgrass and checked his engines.

"Just think of it, Mr. Collins," Barnes grinned ear to ear. "Pumps as far as the eye can see, locals used as cheap labor. Now, the land is isolated, we'll need to lay roads from the north where the land is accessible. No cities for miles except for a few tiny communities that don't know the North won the war, but it's workable. What do you say? Do we have a deal?"

"Mr. Barnes," Roger lifted his head. "The more I think of this, the more I like it. My sister can play things safe as much as she likes. You draw any papers up and we..." He turned his head to another noise. Against the bright blue sky of the open field was another helicopter. It was much larger than the one Barnes had rented and was on a direct path to join them. Cliff and Roger shielded their eyes to the dust and debris thrown up in its wake as it landed with the power of a might metallic beast and came to a rest. A door opened up in its side and two men stepped out, one of them in a large cowboy hat. The white-haired gentleman reminded Roger of both Jason McGuire and even Paul Stoddard. Two men from his past he never cared for, and by the looks of things, he wasn't going to care for these two either.

"Mr. Collins," The figure in the hat beamed with his white-haired gentleman by his side. "I'm J.R. Ewing, this here's Vaughn Leland..."

"Ignore him, Roger," Cliff pulled Roger away. "I told you there were problems in this business."

"Barnes, go play with a rattlesnake." J.R. began leading Roger away with illusions of a prosperous alliance. "Mr. Collins, I run Ewing Oil, the largest oil company in Texas, and my company will offer you three times the worth of this land plus more for every gallon of oil we pump out of it."

"Why should I sell it?" Roger's New England naiveté showed through here on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. "I could make a lot more pumping the oil myself."

"Besides, J.R." Cliff stood by. "We're partners. Any offers you have to throw at us I should hear too."

"Barnes, you wouldn't believe anything unless your ears told you first." Ewing shot back as he turned back to Roger. "Offer pure and simple, I want this land, and I'm going to get it." He pulled out a paper. "Mr. Collins, this land is worth a lot to me. I mean, what does a New England Yankee want this far out here. You can make much more selling it that drilling it."

"It's a good deal, Mr. Collins." Leland looked a great deal as Paul Stoddard. "It would be very profitable than going into a business with someone as inexperienced as a lawyer like Cliff Barnes."

"Sorry, I'm not selling." Roger turned away with his new partner. Watching the two of them continue making plans and discussing payment ventures, J.R. pushed his unsigned paper back into his jacket pocket as he and Leland turned back to their copter.

"Well, J.R.?"

"Like my daddy always says," Ewing responded back. "When you can't get in through the front door, come on in through the back. I want you to hire that private detective again. Have him shake that Collins family tree and loosen the skeletons out of the closets. I want the key that will open Roger Collins' mind to my side."

PART 5

The private investigator was Randall Sharpe and when businessmen from across the states weren't hiring him, he was actually a detective who took straight cases. A few days in Collinsport after talking to Collins employees at the Blue Whale and checking out old newspapers on them, he was flying back to Dallas to meet J.R. Ewing.

"You found something interesting I hope." The oil tycoon reacted as if he was used to bargains with the devil.

"I found more than on the Carringtons." Sharpe dropped a file as he sat down. "First up, Liz Stoddard. She's a recluse. Took to hiding herself in the family estate after her husband vanished. Turned out, she thought she'd killed him and was actually guarding the spot in the basement where she thought he'd been buried."

"And?" J.R. looked up.

"Hoax." Sharpe answered. "She'd been deceived. Her husband turned up years later very well alive. His best friend, Jason McGuire, had set the whole thing up behind her back in order to blackmail her."

"Oh," J.R. looked at the next page of an attractive longhaired blonde.

"Attractive girl."

"Liz's daughter, Carolyn." Sharpe went on. "She dated a wanted thug named Robert "Buzz" Hackett some years ago. They had a falling out and she hasn't seen him since he returned to Collinsport on the run from Chicago Police and tried kidnapping her. Her current husband, William Loomis, also has a former criminal record."

"Major?"

"Just bar fights from his days in the merchant marines." Sharpe paused. "Maybe something else, I'm not sure."

"And this," J.R. swooned over another attractive blonde he knew he'd like to take to bed. "Another daughter?"

"Angelique Bouchard-Collins." Sharpe saw the photo on the file. "She's a bit of a mystery. I can't find anything on her until she was married to Schuyler Rumson, another rather shady figure I can't get any info on. After he died, she married Barnabas Collins, Liz Stoddard's cousin; he's also a bit of mystery. He's supposed to be from the last of the English branch of the family, but other than that, nothing. The other cousin, Quentin Collins, also has no past."

"This is of no use." J.R. thumbed up a page on Maggie Evans-Collins, David Collins and several children. The young boys had violations ranging from misdemeanors and mischief, but nothing as volatile as he desired. "This family's as mysterious as an egg in a bottle. I need something to get Collins to sell me that land."

"I saved..." Sharpe pulled out an envelope from his breast pocket. "The best for last."

J.R. took the envelope and ripped it open. His eyes glanced over it once as he read it more carefully. It wasn't about the Collins, but instead described a plane crash in South America that killed one Burke Devlin and then went into his past as a young man growing up in Collinsport. J.R. suddenly began grinning ear to ear and thenbegan laughing out loud.

PART 6

Angelique played with her one-year-old daughter on the floor of the Old House parlor. Barnabas sat in the chair above them watching happily between reading his book as pig-tailed Sarah giggled and cooed gleefully as her mother rattled her toys and made noises to distract her. A separate noise briefly took their attention as Barnabas took to his feet and rose to answer the door. On the front step, Roger looked up with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

"Barnabas," He started. "May we talk?"

"Of course." The master of the Old House responded.

"Hello, Roger," Angelique looked across the room with her daughter pulled close to her heart.

"Angelique…" Roger acknowledged her presence. "Barnabas, some privacy?"

"Of course." Barnabas looked up understandingly to her and hoped she would understand.

"I'm taking Sarah up for her nap." Angelique lifted herself up as she carried her daughter up to her room. Watching her trace up the stairs, Barnabas motioned to the chair and sat down once more with Roger across from him.

"Barnabas," Roger started. "I need some advice. You know that oil company I'm forming with that Barnes fellow."

"Yes," Barnabas picked up a cup of tea that he'd had sitting by him and lifted it up to his lips to sip.

"Well," Roger continued. "This second fellow, his name is J.R. Ewing, somehow learned about the bad business I had with Burke Devlin several years back. Do you remember Burke Devlin?"

"I remember him." Barnabas flashed back upon events he barely paid any attention to when they were occurring.

"Ewing is threatening me with the details of the hit and run accident I framed Burke with years ago." Roger replied. "He's even suggesting and trying to insinuate I may have been responsible for Devlin's crash in South America. I... I don't know what to do. He's blackmailing me for the property and I don't know what to do. I can't go to Liz for help; she won't have anything to do with me."

"Roger," Barnabas stared back at him. "If he wants the land that much, give it to him. Anything to put an end to this feud separating the family…"

"Barnabas…" Roger looked at him and sort of expected that would be his response, but he was just hoping for another option. "There has to be another answer…"

"What do you suggest?" Barnabas looked up.

Upstairs in a room formerly known as Josette's Room, Angelique sat rocking her daughter and hearing the talk through the baby monitor and its companion piece in the downstairs parlor. She felt for Roger's predicament and as well agreed with Barnabus's suggestion. Feeling there was something she could do, she gasped silently as she remembered her witchcraft. She had promised to never practice it, but sometimes, there was some option to problems in the family that no one but her could consider.

Several hundred miles away in Dallas, Texas, J.R. Ewing walked through the halls of Ewing Oil. He briefly signed off to his secretary and headed toward the elevator to head home, but the hallway seemed darker than he remembered. He continued on his way thinking it was his imagination, but the hall seemed to turn to foliage the deeper he walked down it. He turned back and saw more darkness then looked ahead and saw the corridor had turned into a path in the woods with the trees reaching over his head to become the ceiling. He had somehow been transplanted from his offices into the middle of this dingy swamp! Walking slowly now, he looked up and saw a dim cloudy sky between parting trees. How had he got here? This was impossible! This was his building!

"What the devil is going on here?" He turned round trying to retrace his steps. "Where am I?" He pushed forward figuring this illusion was part of the drinks he'd had at lunch. The woods just started getting more evident as he found himself suddenly standing in a field of tombstones. He whirled around with his briefcase and tried to find some semblance of reality in the illusion over-taking him.

"J.R." Someone called him on the breath of an invisible wind.

"Who is it?" Ewing called out. "What do you want?" His eyes strained through this dream. He saw several moving figures coming toward him. Thin, lanky figures scuffling and staggering on skinny legs came closer to him in the form of dead Civil War officers. Dropping his briefcase, J.R. could barely make a noise as he saw them coming after him. This could not be happening!

"Bobby, Sue Ellen!" He turned and ran the way he came in. "Where are you?"

Between two trees a bony hand lifted up a glowing lantern to reveal the haggard face of what seemed to be a long dead buccaneer. He laughed a deep cajoling burst of haunting glee to have surprised Ewing stumbling back from his garish appearance. Turning from the spectral sight, J.R. saw the mixture of Union and Confederate soldiers also coming toward him. He pushed himself through what seemed to be a mass of high weeds and overgrown brush and began running as he heard the taunting calls and screams of voices behind him. His heart was beating faster as the skeletal arm of a bride in white reached out from being tied to a tree. He gazed back into her empty eyes covered by dirty blonde hair.

"Never disturb the dead." Her hollow voice issued forth from her bony jaw. The bride's arm snapped off as J.R. pulled away. He pulled it off and flung it away as he saw lights in the distance. Running toward them, he thought it was a car, but instead he saw a black coach pulled by four black horses snorting and galloping at full speed. Their master was whipping and thrashing them into a frenzy. The specters of death were right behind him as the rolling hearse came charging toward him. It suddenly skidded to a stop as its black door flung open to receive him.

Screaming as loud as he could, J.R. Ewing found himself sitting in bed at home. His long under-appreciated wife was next to him and his brother was standing over him. Several other immediate family members stood watching from the bedroom door realizing he had been screaming in his sleep.

"J.R." Bobby Ewing looked back at him. "I'm here! I heard you! Are you okay?"

"You were screaming in your sleep." Sue Ellen held on to him. Flushed pale and sweating through his pajamas, her husband tried composing himself and flashed back on the dream. He'd never dreamed anything like that before. It seemed so real. Peering under his sheets and blankets, he chanced to see dirty and mud on his bare feet. How did that get there!

"Fine," J.R. dropped back trying to ignore it. "Just a bad dream." He tried convincing himself, but the phone next to the bed rang by his side. Bobby Ewing motioned to grab it, but J.R. reached it first as his concerned family dispersed from the door.

"J.R. Ewing here."

"Mr. Ewing." Angelique Bouchard-Collins laughed through the phone. "How are you sleeping now that you've met the Collins Family?"

PART 7

Elizabeth Stoddard's head turned as she heard the large oak doors of Collinwood. She placed aside her book and her cup of tea as she gracefully stood and glided out of the drawing room for the foyer and imaging herself the grand dame of Olympus, pulled open the doors to Collinwood.

"Yes?" She looked to the tall handsome fellow standing there.

"Mrs. Stoddard?" The gentleman turned from admiring the estate. "I'm Bobby Ewing, J.R. Ewing's brother."

"I'm afraid it's my brother you want." Liz started closing the door.

"No, Mrs. Stoddard." He implored her. "It's you I want to speak to. Just a few minutes of your time?"

"A few minutes." Liz widened the door and allowed the strikingly handsome young man to enter. She glanced down to the direction of the room Carolyn  
and Maggie were painting for the children and then motioned back to the drawing room. She showed Bobby to a seat as she sat back down.

"Tea?" Liz remained the hostess.

"Thank you." Bobby watched as she took an antique teacup and filled it from an expensive New England teapot before them on the table. "Mrs. Stoddard, I  
want to talk to you about the oilfield in your brother's possession."

"I have nothing to do with that." Liz picked up a plate. "Cookie?"

"Thank you." Bobby grinned at her decorum. "You see… the property he's holding is calling a lot of unrest between my family and my in-laws, the Barnes. I want him to take his business elsewhere to stop the fighting going on over it."

"I'm in the same mood." Liz answered. "I just want him to forget it. That deed has been sitting untouched in one of our storage rooms for almost fifty years. I'm not sure why our father never exploited on it myself."

"He never capitalized on it?" Bobby asked.

"No," Liz revealed. "In fact, we never knew it existed until we cleared out our records room for my grand-children and their cousins."

"Maybe we got something there." Bobby leaned back nibbling on the sugar cookie from in front of him. "Are any of your father's business associates still around?"

"The Garners were my father's lawyers. Richard passed away a while back, but his son Frank has started a firm with Tony Peterson" Liz revealed. "Do you think we can put an end to this?"

"I don't know why we can't try." Bobby grinned pleasantly.

PART 8

J.R. Ewing sat on one side of a table with John Brewster from Northstar Oil. On the other side of the table, Roger Collins and Cliff Barnes stared at him in his large white hat. Their arguing and double-dealing was keeping them from getting very far with the property as J.R. bought up the equipment they needed as they went for it. The legal hassle was coming to a point of no return as they continued to clash with each other.

"Gentlemen," Brewster appealed to them. "Unfortunately, a new problem has arisen. A new debate over ownership has come up."

"Nonsense," Roger lifted his head up. "I have the deed right here. It says that we have a right to do whatever we want with the land."

"Well, uh, yes," Brewster looked toward him. "But new data has come to light that maybe can shed new light on this."

"What new data?" Ewing asked as the doors to the Northstar board room opened up. Striding in on the arm of Bobby Ewing, Liz Stoddard appeared and stood graciously as her escort pulled out her chair for her to sit.

"Bobby," J.R. sat stunned. "What is this?"

"Elizabeth," Roger scowled. "You tossed out the deed. You no longer have a right to it."

"And neither do you, Roger." Liz smiled ear to ear.

"I don't understand this." Cliff nearly stood. "What is this?"

"Cliff, J.R.," Bobby spoke taking charge. "You better hear this."

"Thank you, Bobby." Liz looked back as she took charge. "The problem is the deed. You see, the two of us did a little checking and we discovered why it's been collecting dust for all these years. It's invalid."

"Invalid." Roger choked.

"Now what sort of foolishness is this?" J.R. asked.

"Here is a copy of a telegram my father received in 1952." Liz pulled out a faded piece of paper from the Garner's law files. "But it appears that that 1922 deed is superseded by one issued to Isaac Clampett in 1843 and stored in the Missouri State Records. You've all been fighting over land that his descendants have already been pumping from since 1962."

"This can't be true." Cliff's jaw dropped as J.R. lost his fight and packed his briefcase to leave.

"It's true, Cliff." Bobby answered. "His grandson's been living in Beverly Hills, California for fifteen years now."

"Gentlemen," Brewster stood up to leave. "I believe our business is through." He motioned to leave as Cliff and Roger left on a handshake. Bobby had left with his brother and Roger now remained standing embarrassed and crestfallen before his sister. Liz stared up to him as the big sister he remembered from his youth.

"Liz," Roger tried to force out his humiliation. "I..."

"Forget it, Roger." Liz rolled her eyes as she rose trying to spare him grief. "I understand. I've always owned the house and the business. You just wanted something to call your own."

"Was that so wrong?" Roger could barely look at her. "My god, do you know what it was like growing up in your shadow? Father groomed you to inherit everything; what did he leave me? A tendency to lose my hair and a predisposition to marry the wrong women…"

"You had things I could never have with father." Liz walked alongside him through the Northstar offices to the outside parking lot. "He took you on fishing trips and to see sporting events."

"Like I ever cared for those." Roger mused. "You know, the only good memories I have of growing up was my big sister chasing me across the estate for tying her dresses together. No matter what, you could never catch me."

"I'd forgot that." Liz smiled at the memories. "You see Roger, we do have something in common. We're Collinses."

"And that's something we can't lose." Roger grinned as he opened the door to their limousine. "We may forget, but we are always Collinses." He gestured for her to enter first, and then entered the back of the limo herself.

END


End file.
